You know...this just hit me...i read in an earlier post about why the AI in single player is so "crappy" and then i was thinking just now about it and i realized, hey, why dont you make SP as much like online play as possible? why don't the devs go online and watch how players like Sniper007, Johnathon, Carth, and many other (especially the SiX crew) play through the maps with their respective class/character choice and then impliment the bot AI to do what they do relative to the player? that would make SP a lot more newb friendly and it would better prepare newbs for online play and i think it would make sp play a lot more fun then the simple "bot follow bot hold position" dilliy it is now.

Well, I think the intent of the developers was so that Single Player and Multiplayer experiences would be different. Single Player is to become familiar with the maps, and learn the strengths and weaknesses of each class. In that respect, the way the AI was designed suits this agenda quite well; players need to know who's best to cover which area, who's good to take point, etc.

Those who want to learn how to play better online (other than actually playing themselves) can either spectate more often, or find demos of people playing (for example) maps on insane.

Of course, I think the idea of having bots play like real-life 'experts' is intriguing, not unlike the AI they have programmed for VF4 (or evo? I forget, I'm not a big Virtua Fighter fan). Still, I think it's a _lot_ of extra work (I'm currently in the middle of programming AI for a UT2004 mod myself, so I know) that they really should spend elsewhere (like making up a new campaign ).

Well, the unpredictability of humans is probably not going to be emulated (if ever) anytime soon, but you sure can program responses similar to what a real-life person would do if you based that AI on that person.

Obviously this requires extensive data collecting, but it has already been done on (I believe) Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution. Some of the best players in Japan have AI based on them in the game. Of course, I'm sure it's not exactly perfect, but apparently it's good enough that the players themselves recognize their own fighting style within the AI.

I can't even imagine how much time it would consume programming feasible AI for this game, considering the effectiveness of group movement, positioning etc etc. Even the 2k4 AI is basically A-B pathing

__________________"Who's the moron who put a moron like me in charge?"

hahah well what i meant more specifically was, more "map based" AI...so the AI would rely on the map...that might not be too effecient because of custom maps but...who knos...i think...we can exclude the parts about einstein and u sniper . but hey, maybe there could be modes to select for the AI, like noob friendly AI that chats with you can tries to help you out, and then the enstein/sniper AI in which Faith and Jaeger go have their sweet love O.O... and so forth...it would be a lot of extra work but it would be really cool too , because you cant have the cool pretty stuff without a lot of work that might not really seem like it hehe

I'd prefer that the AI were just simple aimbots like they are now, so you have to plan it out and set up crossfires. But some movement or prediction of attacks from behind would be nice. Currently if you tell a bot to wait they have greater range and accuracy but still get attacked from behind... trying to get a bot to survive at the Uplink boss is so difficult on insane.

__________________I think I can love you
Let's facwe the future together

tthats when u solo the boss and leave them up top i do that in multiplayer a lot....for one, ill usually live, but if i dont ill do hella damage to it before i die, me being a demo, am expendable, then the rest of the team finishes it off, if im the only one to die its a good day

why do i leave them up top ? i use shotty / flamer combo to drop him, and when flameing all the little bugs basically corralling them, like horses, ill flame someone dodgeing the boss every time, that and they have no chance of dieing up there.

__________________
My doctor says that I have a malformed public duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber and that I am therefore excuse from saving the Universe

May be we can add a planning stage after the brief (just like the Rainbow Six, if anyone know), which will allow player(s) to layout the path that the team "suppose" to follow, instead of follow the leader. It is a hell lot of work in Barrack to control those bots at the beginning and the path-planning thing should make the thing much managable.

Also, with that, the AI for the bots may not need to change too much, which means less programming (I believe we all love to ). And the path-planning can add some "real life component" into the game. You cannot simply believe that the marines go into a facility without a floor layout or some plans and they can stay alive.

Anyone ever play conflict: desert storm? Its on X-box and PC. You can pick up a PC version for 10 bucks at all the wal-marts around here. They have a pretty cool buddy system for controlling the other teammates. You hold ALT and press A and can position your cursor wherever you want your teammate to ADVANCE and even rotate the direction you want them to facewith Q and E. Then you can use W and S to select which teammate you want to move there and hit A again to order them to do it. I'm pretty sure thats how it goes. I haven't played it in quite a while. Some more precise bot orders would definitely help solve the problem of stupid AI.

Maybe a way to order formations would be cool, such as 3 face forward and 1 face back, or surround a certain unit (medic or marine), or a 2 face forward and 2 face backward formation.

yea, that would definetly be a plus to the cluster that there is now. I mean i can see how its a definite challenge to decide where to position your chars, but for instances like Uplink boss its definetly nice to have a wee bit better AI --;;...

__________________
Wait a sec...I thought you said Crash always died O.o....I'm not dead yet

It's not really *That* hard to emulate a human in a multiplayer game. Thats what I did for a thesis for my game dev engineer degree.
Basically, you just throw some neural networks and rngs together with a decent pathfinder. And perhaps a DT.
Teamwork isnt too hard either I'd reckon, but I didnt do that in my emulating AI. Time and all that happy jazz.